Facing Eternity
by smee-chan
Summary: *Cloud/Vincent* Sequel to Added Burdens. Time passes, love fades...


Facing Eternity

Sequel to _Added Burdens_.Thanks to Smabbi and Wannon for betaing.

~ Facing Eternity ~

Elena paused again on the stairs, puffing.She wasn't _fat exactly, but she was nowhere near as trim as she had been at twenty__.Thank God I left the Turks! she thought, then laughed at herself.She had been politely "relocated" when new management took over Shinra.She just hadn't been cut out for that sort of lifestyle._

_Break's over, she told herself, resuming the upward climb."I'm… __huff… too… __pant… old… __wheeze… for this," she said aloud, thankful to __finally be at the bottom._

At fifty she was pretty cushy in her desk job, she hadn't had to do any actual fieldwork in years.But President Reeve was verging on retirement, and he was determined to get everything in order for his successor.As founder and head of the historical research department, it was Elena's job to make sure all the records were in order.

She _could have delegated this job to one of her junior staff members, but they were all frantically busy doing their jobs._Besides, the Shinra mansion library had all been catalogued.All she had to do was check everything was there, and supervise the loading.

"You sure took your time, boss," Rowan, her aide, said.Elena swatted lazily at his head as he grinned cheekily and sidestepped her.They had a friendly relationship; they had been working together for ten years, after all._Has it really been that long?_

She'd had her share of excitement during the Sephiroth business but, she admitted to herself, she hadn't been a good Turk.Over eager, thoughtless, and far too obsessed with her boss._Tseng… it had been thirty years last week.Next week would be thirty years last week since Meteor first appeared in the sky.The celebration was not marked, not for Tseng or Meteor, or anyone else that had died in that tumultuous time.They had been told it would be better if they forgot._

The Turks, what was left of them, met every year in Junon.They got drunk, reminisced, did the Turk thing.They hadn't met this year though, Rude's death, at fifty-two, had hit Reno hard.Elena had turned up anyways, hoping to offer sympathy but Reno hadn't come.

She worked methodically as she thought, automatically checking each item against her list, then handing it to Rowan to pack.He kept up a steady stream of chatter, which she had long since learned to tune out.She'd never had a _best friend, like Reno had Rude.It was strange to think of one without the other.She supposed that Reeve was the person she was closest to, they'd drifted together over the years.Sometimes sleeping together, usually just being with one another.She knew that she would be saddened if he died, but not __gutted as Reno had been._

"Have you seen 'item sixty-three'?" she asked, noting it hadn't been checked.Rowan glanced around, flipping over a few tags."No, what is it?"There was no urgency in the question.Things were always going missing, the removal man probably shifted it out of the way.Elena checked her list.

"It's down as a lamp," she replied.Rowan shrugged."It's probably in the hallway, I saw some stuff out there on the way in.Do you want me to check?"

Elena sighed, "Yeah, might as well.Bring everything else in while you're there."Rowan sighed, rolling his eyes, "Yes ma'am," he said.He hated lifting.

He grumbled his way to the hall, as Elena stifled a giggle, she'd help him in second, as soon as she'd had a breather.

"Ah… boss?"Rowan quavered his patent 'scared voice'."What Rowan…?Are there bats out there?"No answer.Elena waited patiently for the blood-curdling scream that would signify the punch line of the joke.

"Rowan, I'm not going to fall for this again," she said, a little impatiently.When Rowan answered, his voice was serious."I'm not joking.You're going to want to see this."

Elena walked out into the hallway, Rowan was holding a lamp in one hand and a torch in the other."In there," he said, indicating an opened door behind him._I don't remember seeing that on the way in._

"That board was covering it," he said, indicating a panel lying to the side.She walked through towards the open door and peered through.Rowan directed a torch beam over her shoulder, illuminating the darkness.It took her eyes a few seconds to adjust, and when they did she gasped.

"Is it… occupied?" she whispered.It didn't seem right to talk loudly. Rowan shook his head. "I think so…"

Elena turned, blinding herself in the torch's beam.She blinked rapidly as Rowan shifted its focus."You didn't check?"

Rowan shook his head."No…?"

The gloomy atmosphere of the basement was making them both nervous.Elena turned wide eyes towards him."Should we… get some backup?" she looked at him for a second, then they both began to laugh, although quickly stifling their mirth.

"Back up?" Rowan queried.

Elena grinned."Now you see why I'm not a Turk," she said, "I meant, like, someone official."With that cleared up, they both ignored the question, creeping forward in morbid fascination.

~ * ~

He sat and listened, carefully, without judging.I found myself sharing more than I wanted to… but not quite everything.I didn't tell him why it was my fault.I didn't tell him that I had loved Lucrecia to the point of obsession, that I had loved her with the mindless devotion of a puppy… I loved her so much that I didn't realise that I had no desire for her.

I would never have realised it if Hojo hadn't confronted me.He called me names, which for the first time I realised were true.I fled his accusations, and left Lucrecia to her fate.Then, like a coward, when faced with my sins I retreated into guilt and depression, and allowed my beloved's child to turn into an evil, destructive force that had to be stopped.The only consolation I can give is that Lucrecia remained ignorant of Sephiroth's transformation… but Sephiroth remained ignorant of his mother.

I could see that without telling him everything I couldn't make him understand.But when I tried to speak the words, they wouldn't come.After our confessions we sat in silence until Cloud finally spoke.

"Vincent, I…"

I smiled slightly, hoping that I could prompt him to talk, to share with me again.

Then, he surprised me.We were standing so close, too close perhaps.It took so little for him to bridge the gaps between us, to just lean forward and kiss me.I wanted so much to respond, but my mind was frozen.I stood still against his warmth, revelling in his touch, but not answering with my own.

He pulls back and looks at me in confusion._I can't do this.Not… not again.I'm not meant for this.Love me and be betrayed… I am a monster…_

"I'm sorry… I lo… I love you." He stutters when he says it, bravado fleeing in the face of my coldness.

"I cannot love you."_Because I do not deserve you… _

"Why?I can love you despite my failings… we are so much alike… you _understand me!"He is so full of passion, so full of life… I want to explain everything to him so he will understand.Twice I open my mouth to tell him that I am a coward, and a fool.To reveal my heart and what sorrow it brings others.To tell him exactly how I betrayed my love, and why I cannot judge _her_ betrayal… because I betrayed her too._

I cannot say it… so instead I opt for the cowards way again.

"It's unnatural.What you did is a sin against God… against the natural order of things.Your actions add to the burden you must bear… the burdens I must bear.You cannot love me.I love Lucrecia and I always will.What you feel is an abomination."

He looks shattered, I know I was unnecessarily harsh, but it's better this way.He apologizes, and leaves quickly, not wanting to prolong our suffering.

_What have I done?Again I have hurt and betrayed my love… Like a coward I return to my coffin, even the nightmares are better than facing him again, living with the burden of loving him, the burden of hurting him._

I cannot love him.I will not love him.

~ * ~

He relived the moments again and again.Were the feelings… the attraction a punishment from the Planet?He could find no other explanation for a love so cruel.

Through his sleep he had dreamt often of the blond warrior, the last person he has seen in this lifetime.He had savage nightmares of death and destruction, painful memories of times gone by, but mainly he dreamt of what could have been, and that hurt worse than any nightmare.

He swept from his memories to reality without realising it.He was lying there in utter blackness and through that he could hear voices.Abruptly he was transported back.Déjà vu.He blinked in the sudden and unfamiliar light, seeing it again for the first time..Through eyes unused to seeing reality and in darkness more suited to sleep he could see a pale face framed by golden hair

"_Cloud?"_

_ _

Then it shattered.

~ * ~

"Oh my God!It's Valentine!" Elena exclaimed in relief and recognition.

"Valentines?! What!?"

Elena sighed, "Vincent Valentine, you moron," she snapped, suddenly losing all good humour.

"Oh."

Vincent Valentine was famous amongst the Turks, but little was known about him outside their circle.

"He was a Turk when Tseng was just starting out," she explained shortly.

The pale figure was blinking in their torchlight.His mouth was moving.Elena realized that he was trying to talk.

"Hush!" she said, stilling Rowan's questions.

"Let me hear him."

Rowan hushed obediently and they both leant over the coffin.

"Why have you disturbed my rest?" He couldn't move with them hovering over his coffin, but the calm question startled them, and they both took a large step backwards, stumbling against each other.

"W-we, uh… sorry," Elena stuttered, backing away.Vincent flew from the coffin.

"The time I've spent in atonement has not assuaged my guilt," Vincent said, remembering the nightmares and memories that haunted him._I can't face him now... he won't remember me anyway… years have passed whilst I have hidden in cowardliness, unable to forget what I was too scared to accept._

He was talking more to himself than to them, but Elena found herself filling the silence after his singular statement.

"You've been missing since… Meteor… have you been here for thirty years?"she asked in disbelief.Valentine was a legend, not a God.

Sorrow showed in Vincent's time-missed face."My sleep does not rest me… and my dreams bring me no peace," he said, "I have burdens in abundance."_Perhaps more than when I began my atonement._

With a start Elena remembered an order given in the first year of Reeve's 'rule'.

_Reeve stood at the behind the large desk.He seemed small, but his voice was determined, and he had gained their respect.He paused a moment to glance at the assemble sample of Shinra, and then he spoke._

_ _

"_Former members of AVALANCHE are not under any circumstance to be disturbed."_He paused again, and glanced at the papers clutched in his hand."Cloud Strife," he waited for murmurs to die down, "Has especially requested that no one disturb Vincent Valentine.Currently residing at the Shinra Mansion in Nibelheim." 

_ _

_The murmurs swelled at the mention of the former Turk, long believed dead._

_ _

_"Infringements will be dealt with severely."Reeve concluded._

_ _

The memory had slipped through the cracks of her mind, the order had been given years ago, and she'd not had any reason to remember it in a long time.

"I wonder if Reeve knows that you're still here," Elena muttered to herself, "We should go…"

Vincent made no move to stop them, watching in silence as they left._I don't belong to their world, now more than ever.With each minute I spend alone, I grow more alienated and less human.If I were to leave this place I would not understand the world as it is now._

He sunk slowly into the coffin that was his home, almost looking forward to the nightmares of his oblivion._At least in them I am alive. _

He lay in darkness, waiting for sleep to overwhelm.Used to instant oblivion, this lying and waiting was new and unfamiliar for him.For the first time since he'd died*, sleep evaded him.Instead of his familiar nightmares, and unwelcome memories, a face floated in the shadows of his mind._Cloud…_

~ * ~

He blinked in the sunlight, and drew his mask higher over his face._Why am I out here? he asked himself, again.He had not envisioned himself ever walking amongst the living again.They were not the people and places he'd known in his first life._

He was going to Kalm, where Tifa had said she was going to live.The thought of Cloud and Tifa together hurt him again, even though he'd dreamt often of them being together, the idea of it still pained him._I can't blame him if he is… it's been decades since he claimed to love me… _

It didn't matter if they were together, things between them would never work anyway, but he wanted to see Cloud again, to tell him that he didn't hate him… to make things better between them._I need to live again._

_ _

~ * ~

_ _

The two graves stood side by side.Ivy trailed over both headstones, but the effect was obviously desired, considering the neatly trimmed grass and gleaming marble.He read the simple inscription on the first grave a second time, not quite believing that she was gone.

**Tifa Lockhart-Strife**

**Beloved Mother, Wife, Friend and Companion**

** **

He could not reconcile the image of Tifa, strong, caring friend with Tifa, dead._She was too young, even in the time I spent in pity and guilt she could not have grown old.He felt guilty for wishing her away from Cloud, and guilty for begrudging their marriage.__How did this happen…?_

_ _

His eyes passed to the second grave, fearing what it would say, knowing what it would say.

**Cloud Strife**

**Beloved__**

**_ _**

He felt a tear form in his eyes, for both of them, and for the child who kept their graves._A child of Tifa and Cloud would be a force.Seeing the name on the grave had brought home to him how much Cloud meant to him.For 30 years he'd mourned him, built him up in his mind, loved him._

"Didn't think I'd ever see you again."

A ghost's voice.He looked at the second grave again.Then turned, and saw a man that he was trying to convince himself was gone.

"Cloud?"

"I blamed myself for awhile, you know," Cloud remarked conversationally, "thought it was 'cause I didn't love her enough."He leant forward and uncovered the rest of the inscription. 

**Cloud Strife**

**Beloved Daughter**

** **

"Tifa called her that." he continued, "Her last words were 'look after Cloud, my baby'.I thought she was talking about me, she didn't know that baby was still-born."He shrugged.

Vincent looked at him sadly, this distant, bitter man was not the Cloud Strife of 30 years ago.

"How did it happen?"The question may have been insensitive, but he wanted an honest reaction from him.

Cloud smiled tightly, "Have you read Hojo's notes on the effects of Jenova on childbirth?" he asked.Vincent shook his head.

"We spent nearly two decades together, you know?" Cloud said, "I had to find out why it happened… the Shinra mansion seemed a nice place to start."A bitter twist on nice.

"We…?" The way Cloud had said it sounded like he meant Cloud and Vincent, not Cloud and Tifa.

"I sat outside your room, researching, thinking… atoning.It was my fault, in a way.Hojo's alterations to me were passed through me into my child.Tifa went into labour early, but the baby was already full size and more… she was ripped apart as it was born… and it… _she just lay there, lifeless.I lost them both in the same day."_

Vincent felt the tear grow, and slip down his face.A tiny droplet for Tifa, for the child, and for Cloud, all three of them were dead."Cloud," He walked forward and wrapped his arms around the smaller man.Cloud stood stiff and unyielding in his embrace."I love you," he said into his ear, his inhibitions could not stand in the face of Cloud's inhuman indifference.He had recited the entire tragedy in a calm, detached voice, unfeeling, dead.

"Thank you, " he said, "but your pity is unnecessary.They have been dead for over 20 years, I've dealt with it."

Vincent sighed and hugged Cloud closer to him.He had once been this young man only instead of retreating behind a wall of detachment he had retreated behind a barricade of guilt. 

"It's not pity," he said, "It's understanding… and honesty."He didn't expect Cloud to believe him, and was unsurprised by the derisive snort. 

"I will live forever," Cloud said, "or near to it."Still the cold, dead tone, it was as if nothing affected him."I read that in Hojo's notes too.I am indestructible, invincible and immortal.I will spend eternity alive, watching things fall away, piece by piece."_Only the Planet can destroy me, for I am part of it._

_ _

He still stood, stiff and straight in Vincent's arms, unmoving, uncaring."I have died once already," Vincent revealed, "and I too cannot be killed by ordinary means."

"An eternity of regret… of pain."Cloud said, there was something in his voice, a hint of despair that Vincent clung to, despair could be twisted into hope.

"But not an eternity alone," he said quietly.It was a beginning.

~ Continued some day ~

**_~ Dedicated to MSN Messenger ~_****__**


End file.
